The Twelve Vitali Ch. 09

"You'll have to do the whole pinkie swear, cross your heart thing, but if you want to stay that's fine with me," Peri shrugged. She had hoped to talk to Cat alone, but she knew Bianca felt a bit misplaced in the family since moving overseas.

Peri was more than impressed with the concepts Cat had come up with in initial drawings for the portraits. Bianca promised to make her husband attend regular sittings once she realised how important this was to not only Peri but the whole family. They'd left soon after all of the funerals and had not been here often during the last two years to watch everyone rebuilding their lives. These paintings were a symbol of the strength of this family to overcome anything and present a united front without any pretence.

"I hear you've been dating my favourite nephew," Bianca said as Cat began covering the large canvasses again and putting her drawings away.

"I doubt you have any nephews who are old enough to be dating," Cat laughed.

"Roberto and Stefano are my big brothers.Tthere's a bit of an age gap, I'm the baby of the family," she grinned.

"Wow!" Cat said blinking.

"I'm also probably not as young as I look, but I will deny that if you ever repeat it," she said good-naturedly.

"We broke up, just before I came here," Cat said with a touch of sadness in her voice.

"Oh, that's a shame. I thought Matteo was finally moving past everything. When your own mother tries to kill you, the scars aren't just physical, and then that whole thing with Nik. Still, dating is a good sign. Why did you break up? Do you think you might get back together again? My mother told me he had been to see Roberto about you, so I'm guessing he was serious about you at some stage." Bianca asked, seemingly oblivious to any heartache Cat might be feeling.

"I'd rather not talk about it," Cat said softly, and turned back toward her canvas, adjusting the cover.

"Oh dear, you loved him!" Bianca immediately regretted the offhand way she had spoken. She didn't mention any speculation her mother had made when she had told her that Matteo was dating a young artist. "I'm so sorry; I would never have said those things if I knew you were hurting."

"I broke it off," Cat stiffened her back, taking a large breath. "I'm fine. Yes, I do love him, but it's just one of those impossible things. We are better off this way."

"Sometimes I have believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast," Bianca quoted Lewis Carrol. "Just look at Peri, nothing is impossible when it comes to matters of the heart. I mean, Dante? Seriously? Just shows there's someone for everyone." She laughed at Peri's expression. "Oh, come on, you were married and pregnant to Mr. Wonderful, everyone's knight in shining armour. And, what? You decided you needed to visit the dark side?" She continued to laugh.

"Well, we can't all fall in love with one of the naughty but nice Valentine brothers," Peri sniped back laughingly.

"I know, right? How lucky am I?" Bianca grinned. "It must be so hard for you having to paint all these gorgeous men. You should do a nude of them all just for us ladies to ogle over." She teased. "Tell them they are going to be the perfect specimen, like the statue of David or something."

"No, I don't think so," Cat blushed brightly and shook her head, laughing with the two women.

"Let's get some lunch, I'm starving," Peri said. "One of the pitfalls of breastfeeding is I am always starving."

*****

Matteo had spent a week with his family in the Kimberley. He trekked through Piccaninny Gorge and the Bungle Bungles with guides and had done a lot of soul-searching. Each of his siblings seemed to do the same, both together and apart, and he had finally faced his mother and asked the question of why, not expecting such an open and honest response. He guessed she had time to come to terms with not only what she had done but what had been done to her, and he had listened silently as she had talked about the pure insanity that her life had become and the fact that she had no desire to return to reality and the machinations of her family. Unlike Nik, she was happy here in the facility paying for her sins.

On the last day of the family's time with the Papillo, he had built up the strength to face Nik and requested a meeting. He had gone to her expecting to still feel the extreme pain of loving a woman like her but had felt nothing but a great sense of pity as he had been shown into the small suite that housed the beautiful woman.

"My God, Matteo! You're here!" she had smiled widely and went to hug him, "I knew Theresa wouldn't let me down." Matteo stepped away from her and put his hand up before him rather than let her hug him.

"Hello, Nik," he said in a deadpan voice.

"Oh, you're not still mad that I turned down your proposal, are you?" she asked innocently. "We had such a good thing; we loved each other and had a lot of fun. Neither of us was ready to settle down at the time. You have to see that," she continued to close the gap between them slowly. "I promise if you get me out of here it could be just as good again. I'd even marry you this time when you ask."

"Why would you think I would want to marry you, now?" he asked acidly.

"Because you love me, of course," she laughed as if he was joking. "You've always loved me, silly. Don't you think I'm beautiful anymore?" she asked coquettishly.

"You think I have been pining away for you for the last three years and that I am here to ask you to marry me again?" he asked incredulously. "After the way you treated me?"

"Aww, Mattie, I didn't mean it. Think about all the good times we had, not the silly proposal," she waved away the event as if it was an annoyance to be easily forgiven. "We can be happy again, just you and me. I promise I'll be the best wife ever."

"Barefoot in the kitchen with lots of babies to look after?" he asked, and saw the hatred in her eyes briefly before she smoothed over her features.

"Yes, just you and me in the house on the hill," she smiled sweetly. "You know that's why you are here. You want me there, with you, sharing your life and your bed. We were always so good together in bed," she said, dropping her voice down to a husky register.

"I don't love you, Nik. I don't think I ever loved you the way a man should love the woman he marries. I think I was enthralled by you. Under a spell even. You broke that spell with your cruelty and abuse. I haven't come here to be enslaved by sex again. I came here to thank you for giving me the freedom to live my life and find real love," Matteo watched as the sex kitten who had been approaching him changed and became a snarling feral beast. He was vaguely aware of the two men who had come to stand closely behind him and keep her from attacking him outright.

"Liar!" she screeched. "You love me! You have always loved me! You will always love me! Now get me out of here!"

"I did love you," he admitted. "I thought it was true love. It wasn't, though, was it? Be truthful, Nik. The only reason you said any of that was because you thought you had a hope of getting out of here," Matteo said.

"Ben will come and get me once he's sure I am sorry!" Nik spat. "Josh may be being an idiot over that fat cow, Peri, but Ben would never let me rot here!"

"They think you died in the prison break, Nik," Matteo said gently and without rancour. "No one in your family knows you're alive, let alone where you are. This is the ghost town, Nik. No one leaves here, ever. You took all of the chances and privileges your parents could offer and you killed them. They died in part because of your actions. Doesn't that affect you at all?"

"I did nothing wrong!" Nik screamed. "Why do I have to keep telling everyone that! I. Did. Nothing. Wrong!"

There it was, Matteo realised. The four words that had so shattered Theresa's view of the world and Trista's attitude to life. Nik honestly believed she was totally within her rights to treat people the way she had, and as he thought over his last conversation with his sister at the book launch he could see the same belief that nothing she did was inexcusable.

"The next time an ex-lover arrives and you try to get them to believe that you have changed and love them enough to settle down and play the good wife you might want to start with an apology and some remorse for the hurt you have caused them. You have done a great many things wrong, Nik. You used and abused anyone who cared for you so that now, when you need them the most, no one is coming to help you. Everyone who cares about you at all believes you're dead," he stated unemotionally.

"You know I'm alive!" she spat.

"That's true, but I. Don't. Care." He enunciated each word. "I thought I would, but I feel nothing for you, not even pity. You did this to yourself, and if you can't be sorry for the people you hurt, then feel sorry for yourself and admit you did something wrong to end up here. No one else is coming, Nik. Not now. Not ever."

Matteo turned and left the room feeling oddly happy. He'd wasted so much time on a woman who was totally and inconclusively insane. He felt lighter and freer. The difference between the woman who was the Nik he knew and Cat hit him like a tonne of bricks, and he knew now that he not only wanted but needed Cat back in his life. She had admitted she was falling in love with him and he had walked away. He just hoped it wasn't too late to admit that he had been scared of the feelings he had for her, which was why he had walked away in the end when she'd told him to leave.

*****

Pete was happy to have time to spend with Cat. The young woman fascinated him, and although he knew that she and Matteo had dated for just a week or two, he was also aware that it had been an intense time for her, and that although she had broken up with him, she had done it reluctantly.

He was a patient man who was content to observe her and talk to her about her life, letting her reveal herself slowly. He knew her history from the family research on her, as well as her medical history taken from a hospital database near her home in Melbourne. He'd started letting her get to know him little by little. He didn't talk much about himself, his true self within his family. He was their doctor, the guy they came to for help and to talk about problems, yet aside from his father very few knew anything about his personal life. Most assumed he was a workaholic, which was true to a certain extent. She had wanted to get to know him though, and he was slowly opening up to her himself as they became friends.

He approached her cabin and saw her standing with her phone in her hand, watching it as the melody played without answering it. He considered her carefully before tapping on the open door and walking in.

"I'm not looking," he said, quickly shielding his eyes and taking a chair behind where she had the large canvas set up so that she could continue to work while they talked, as they did most evenings for an hour or two. This chair had been set up for when he and the other men came in for sittings as she worked on proportions and body types for the individual portraits that would combine into a family portrait of the Donati twelve.

"Matteo?" he asked, indicating her unanswered phone.

"I haven't heard from him for weeks, now suddenly he is calling and not leaving messages or texting," she frowned at the phone.

"You know if you answered it you would find out what he wanted," Pete chuckled.

"I don't know that I want to know," she admitted. "I haven't spoken to him since asking him to leave. Except for an angry message I left on his phone after Romy got me to sign the paperwork for the apartment he was letting me in stay in," there was something about Pete that made her want to confess what she was really thinking and feeling. Her phone came to life again as she looked at it.

"Answer it," Pete said, his voice strong but not forceful, and without thinking she did what he said. Picking up the phone she saw it was her brother and answered it.

"David?" she asked.

"Yeah. Look, I don't know how serious he is, but my boss says he's going to fire me if you don't talk to him," David gave a nervous chuckle.

"Martin?" she asked. "Why would he want to talk to me?"

"No. The boss! Matteo Vitali," David said carefully.

"He what? Is he there with you?" Cat asked, not believing this was happening.

"Yes," David said.

"He won't fire you, David, relax," Cat said. "He's just used to getting his own way. Can you put me on speaker?" Cat asked, and waited until she heard the echo in the background. "Matteo, you realise how idiotic this is, right? Please stop calling, I have a job to do here. I will call you after the Gathering ends when I return to the city. If you fire my brother, however, I will never speak to you again."

"Fine," Matteo sighed. "You have ten days, and then we have to talk about what happened. It's been a rough week, so don't push me too far, Cat. We need to talk, and sooner rather than later."

"Fine!" she said. "Ten days! David, I'll call you later!" she snapped and hung up the phone.

She smiled. She wanted to see Matteo, she had missed him more than she had admitted, even to herself before hearing his voice. The things she wanted to say she couldn't say over the phone. She wanted to talk to him, really talk to him and look into his eyes as she did. That was why she hadn't been answering his calls. She had worried about what he might say about the breakup and the angry message she had left for him after being forced to accept the apartment. She was glad that he wanted to talk to her again. She had worried that he would retreat back into work and she would have to force him to see her again by making contact with Roberto in order to say what she needed to say to him.

She'd been horrified as, finally, after her curiosity had gotten the better of her, she had asked Bianca what she had meant when she had said Matteo's mother had tried to kill him. She had been told about the death of Alessandro and Matteo's injury, and part of the puzzle about why he shunned love began to make sense to her. Not that she thought scars like that could be fixed, but she owed him the chance to talk to her about it, which might ease some of his concerns.

"That smile doesn't go with the snappy voice," Pete said after hearing only one side of the conversation.

"It's complicated," she said, "And I'm not ready to deal with it yet," she admitted.

"But you're going to be ready in ten days?" he chuckled.

"Probably not, but I at least have time to work it out, if I can," she said smiling again, despite her misgivings.

Pete lapsed into silence, letting her think about the call and what it meant to her as he studied her. He could see possibilities in Cat, and perhaps it was time to show her that she had options. His family loved her, and the Vitali's had not treated her well, by all accounts, aside of Frankie. He still wasn't sure she could conform to his expectations, but it mightn't hurt to find out.

"The all singing, all dancing Donati concert is tomorrow night. You'll come with me, we will have fun," he said more as a statement of fact than a question, using the same strong voice he had used when he told her to answer her phone, and felt a sense of satisfaction when she complied so quickly.

"I guess I could use a break," she smiled thoughtfully. "Sure, that sounds like fun," she agreed.

Pete smiled widely, a small thrill running up his spine at her easy acceptance of his words. Perhaps he had been right about her after all. He decided to continue to pursue his friendship with her and wait to see if Matteo's interest in her came to anything, or if the break up was permanent while letting her see who he was behind the congenial bedside manner of the family doctor. He had no desire to be involved with a woman whose affections could possibly lie elsewhere. He considered that the two short term affairs she had with the Vitali brothers could be nothing but a need to feel secure after her attack.

*****

"Well, that didn't go well," Matteo chuckled. "Maybe we should have done a video call, like a real hostage situation."

"Look, I'm not sure what's going on here," David said in obvious confusion.

"She never mentioned me?" Matteo blinked. As close as they were, he had just assumed David knew that they had been dating, especially after his initial meeting with David a few weeks ago.

"Nope, I didn't even know you knew who she was," he said. "At the risk of losing my job, I feel like I have to ask what your deal is with my sister?"

"Sorry, mate, that must have been a confusing phone call for you then," Matteo couldn't help but laugh. "I met Cat when she went to Brisbane, we were dating for a little while and then she dumped me. Now I'm on a quest to win her back."

"Why did she dump you? Bear in mind I will be asking her tonight," David said in a friendly manner, but was more than willing to defend his sister's honour if he had to.

"I was an idiot and didn't tell her how I felt. I'm not sure I knew how I felt exactly until she was gone," he admitted. "Alright, I have a new job for you for a few days, follow me."

"Can I ask what it is?" David fell into step with Matteo.

"I need information. Information only you have. Once I have that information we will put together a treasure hunt for two geniuses that are hard to challenge, so I'm hoping your information is good," Matteo said. "Start talking, I want to know all of Cat's favourite things, starting from childhood, favourite toy, candy, treat, food, all the usual stuff."

"Look, I don't know how well you know her, but we didn't have that sort of childhood. Cat scrounged through our mother's bag and clothes every night for enough money to buy bread. We didn't have toys, candy or treats. Sometimes mum would sober up for a day or two, or the neighbours would help out, but we didn't have favourite anything's," he said unselfconsciously. "Everything we have now is because she worked hard to make sure I got the opportunity to play football and get the internship with your company through Coach Frankie. So, if you're planning on being a prick, like your brother, you can count me out. She's every bit as good as any other girl who grew up rich, and I won't let you treat her like she isn't. Job or no job."

Matteo stared at David dumbfounded. He shouldn't have been surprised, but he was. Most people just did what he said when he said it. He was Matteo Vitali, after all. This man and his sister seemed determine to frustrate him at every turn, and he became suddenly very serious.

"You're right, Ricco was a prick, and he is the first to admit it. I spoke to him a lot about the regret he feels about hurting your sister. I promise you I have been entirely honest with her up until now and I have no intention of doing anything that will ultimately hurt her. I genuinely want to fix things between us, and I need your help and friendship to do that," Matteo said sincerely.

"I'm not so sure she'd be happy with me helping you. She did dump you, so there must have been a reason. And I wasn't exaggerating, we had nothing, and anything we did have she gave to me because I was a whiny little kid," he admitted with a grimace. "I don't think you need me, I think you need a miracle," he chuckled, "Because sending her gifts won't impress her the way you think."

*****